Liverpool Sound and Vision Rating * * * *

“…And they lived happily ever after”…is the world of fairy tales most valued sentence, it is the culmination of the narrative into which the book closes and the tired parent leaves the eager child hanging on for the next adventure, for the next moment in which the reality of princes saving damsels and ogres munching on the bones of the inquisitive are taken as fact. Fairy Tales don’t really exist but Fables now that’s a different matter and as in the world of humans, nobody truly lives Happily Ever After, the cop out of innocence never runs that’s smooth.

Bill Willingham’s unceasingly interesting world is drawing to its bitter conclusion, the race of Fables will either surrender to the inevitable final fight or find themselves bereft and rudderless; it is a fight that comes down to two women, two sisters and the fates and people they draw to their sides.

If Happily Ever After was ever a truthful option, if the shifting force of Time, even in Graphic Novels, were to be held true then Snow White and Rose Red would have long since made the hatchet that stands between them disappear; however all is not well in Fable Town and that hatchet stands as a constant reminder that Snow White’s husband, the destruction that wields itself in the form of Bigby Wolf, is on the rampage and it is an act of obliteration that looks as if it cannot be contained or withstood.

Bill Willingham’s careful manoeuvring has been one that the story line in which seemed to be finding its own natural slowing down process is still setting the imagination of its fans alight after 21 issues. It is the authority and influence of the writer that comes across and enthuse the thoughts of the reader and the art work that adjoins it. The corruption of power that is raging through the mind and soul of Rose Red draws parallels in many ways the idea of just how far some will go in order to be the top dog, whether it is president of a country or the damning control of a company; power doesn’t just corrupt, it becomes a disease to which the only cure is death.

Happily Ever After? With Bill Willingham’s Fables series being amongst the finest of all Graphic Novel releases, there is no telling what will happen.

Fables: Happily Ever After is available to purchase from Worlds Apart on Lime Street, Liverpool.

Ian D. Hall